It is Labor Day today in the U.S. Traditionally this marks the end of summer. Students are back in school. And as befits that, three of the books here concern life on the college campus, including an important defense for including religious ideas in academic discourse. A couple books tackle tough theological questions, particularly that of God-sanctioned violence in the Bible. Others chart a vision for a faith that doesn’t make enemies, reflect on what it means to be in Christ, and propose that Christian witness can be delightful rather than dreadful. Jean Vanier was probably one of the most non-violent of men. I read a wonderful biography of his life. Two books deal with very different forms of ecology–of the American desert and of digital space. Two fine historical books are in this list, one on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and one on the first settlement of the Ohio country. It wasn’t all serious stuff though–a mystery in a bookstore, a spy thriller set in the Sputnik era, and a beautiful debut novel. Good reads of all sorts here. It can’t be all back to school or back to work!

The Church of Us vs. Them: Freedom from a Faith That Feeds on Making Enemies, David E. Fitch. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2019. Discusses the roots of a church of us versus them and proposes a vision of the church as a space beyond making enemies. Review

Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey, illustrated by Peter Parnell. New York: Touchstone, 1968. The author’s account of spending six months as a park ranger in the Arches National Monument in southwest Utah. Review

The Violence of the Biblical God, L. Daniel Hawk, foreword by John Goldingay. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2019. A study of the narratives of violence in scripture and the multiple perspectives one finds in the text regarding God’s involvement in that violence. Review

Campus Life: In Search of Community, Edited by Drew W. Moser and Todd C. Ream, Foreword by David Brooks. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019. An expanded version of a 1990 Carnegie Foundation report on the basis for community on college campuses, with contributions from pairs of academic and student development leaders at six Christian universities. Review

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, Matthew Sullivan. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018. When Joey the Bookfrog commits suicide at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, Lydia Smith’s ordered life is overturned as she discovers a connection between his death and buried memories from childhood that had marked her life ever since. Review

Confronting Old Testament Controversies: Pressing Questions About Evolution, Sexuality, History, and Violence, Tremper Longman III. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2019. With a commitment both to the authority of the Bible, and pastoral concern for readers, the author addresses controversial questions about origins, historicity, violence, and sexuality. Review

The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation, Brenda Wineapple. New York: Random House, 2019. A history of the accidental presidency of Andrew Johnson, his resistance to the civil rights fought for in the Civil War, and the impeachment proceedings against him. Review

Hidden in Christ: Living as God’s Beloved, James Bryan Smith. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press/Formatio, 2013, 2019. Thirty short reflections on different key words found in Colossians 3:1-17 on what it means to be “in” Christ. Review

The Pioneers, David McCullough. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019. An account of the first European-Americans to settle the Northwest Territory, focused on their settlement at Marietta, the challenges they faced, key figures in the town’s early history, and three important conditions they established in the new territory. Review

Ecologies of Faith in a Digital Age, Stephen D. Lowe and Mary E. Lowe. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018. Proposes an ecological model of faith formation and the possibility of creating this kind of spiritual ecology in online educational settings. Review

Jean Vanier: Portrait of a Free Man,  Anne-Sophie Constant. Walden, NY: Plough Publishing, 2019. A biography of Jean Vanier, the founder and guide of the L’Arche homes where assistants and cognitively disabled live together in community. Review

Who’s On First (A Blackford Oakes Mystery), William F. Buckley, Jr. New York: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Media, 2015 (originally published 1980). Oakes becomes involved in a plot to abduct a Soviet scientist couple involved in the research to launch Sputnik. Review

Religion in the University, Nicholas Wolterstorff. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019. Defends the idea of the place of religious ideas in scholarly discussion. Review

The Dearly Beloved, Cara Wall. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019. Two couples, the men holding a joint call to a New York City church in a time of change, two wives utterly unlike, and the bonds forged between them as they lean into suffering and the challenges of faith each approaches differently. Review

In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World. Jake Meador. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2019. Observing the breakdown in community in both church and society, the author traces the root causes, and the practices of Christian community that can lead to recovery of community and a church that seeks the common good in society. Review

Walking with Jesus on Campus, Stephen Kellough. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2019. A former college chaplain reflects on ten key issues students face. Review

The Reluctant Witness, Don Everts. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2019. One reluctant witness shares personal narrative, helpful principles, and survey data that indicate that spiritual conversations may be delightful rather than dreadful. Review

Best Book of the Month: In this case, my choice is one that I thought the most significant of the month, Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Religion in the University. Far too often, the assumption is that we must keep religious ideas out of academic discussions, except when we are talking about religion. Wolterstorff makes an argument for how religious ideas are important to the discussions that occur in the university and, in fact, can enrich those discussions.

Quote of the Month: I love Ann-Sophie Constant’s description of Jean Vanier’s compassion for the intellectually challenged:

Jean has a profound intuition of human beings and of their beauty. “They don’t realize that they are so beautiful!” he says. “They are so crushed with guilt and feel very dirty. They don’t have any self-confidence. They do not realize that they are loved. They don’t know how valuable and how precious they are” (p. 75).

Current Reads and Upcoming Reviews: I’m very excited to be reading a collection of short essays titled Science and Faith. The mistaken notion is out there that there is a war between the two. These essays suggest that the two are complementary ways of understanding the world. I’m also reading Fundamental U, a scholarly study of fundamentalist Bible institutions and colleges, their history and development, and impact on the wider higher education landscape. A Liberated Mind is on ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), a counseling approach. Way back when, I was a psychology major and still try to work in a few books on the subject. Finally, I’m an inveterate Inklings lover, and digging into Tom Shippey’s Road to Middle-Earth, which looks at the influence of Tolkien’s philological studies on his work.

The end of summer has brought a raft of new books to review. Look for a post previewing these new arrivals soon!

 

I was traveling for a week this month and so posted fewer reviews than usual, but read some gems, nonetheless. For lovers of literature, there was a work on the influence of the Bible on English poetic imagination, a collection of essays on the work of Marilynne Robinson, and a book on the “earthy” spirituality of C. S. Lewis. For those who are writers themselves, I reviewed a couple books on writing. In the area of fiction, I discovered Stuart Kaminsky’s Chief Inspector Rostnikov, and the first installment of a new fantasy trilogy. My history read for the month was Michael Beschloss’s study of war presidents. It was sobering to see the cost to these presidents of leading the nation in war. I liked Paul Gould’s idea of an apologetic of beauty, goodness, and truth, and Chris Nye’s challenge to a kingdom vision that far surpasses the American dream. Two books fell in the category of unusual topics: Ben Witherington’s fictional account of the life of Priscilla, who appears in Acts and several of the letters of Paul, and Karl Deenick’s biblical theology of circumcision. Rounding out the month was David Brooks, The Second Mountain, describing the journey from success to commitent, and something of what it has meant in the New York Times columnist’s own life. So, here’s the list, along with links to the full reviews.

Scripture and the English Poetic Imagination, David Lyle Jeffrey. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019. A collection of essays tracing the influence of the scriptures, and particularly the poetry of scripture, upon poetry in the English language from medieval to modern times. Review

Priscilla, Ben Witherington III. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, C2019. An imaginative rendering of the story of Priscilla, a companion of Paul, as a dictated narrative recorded by her adopted daughter Julia, as she faces possible trial before a Roman tribunal. Review

Balm in Gilead: A Theological Dialogue with Marilynne Robinson, edited by Timothy Larsen and Keith L. Johnson. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019. A collection of presentations from the 2018 Wheaton Theology Conference, discussing the work, and particularly the fiction, of Marilynne Robinson with contributions from Robinson. Review

Presidents of War, Michael Beschloss. New York: Crown Publishing, 2018. An account of eight American presidents who led the nation into war, how they coped with its stresses, and the consequences of their actions with regard to presidential power. Review

Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World, Paul M. Gould, foreword by J. P. Moreland. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019. Contends that in our disenchanted post-modern world, the apologist needs to engage in a culturally aware apologetic that appeals to goodness, truth, and beauty. Review

Fall of a Cosmonaut (Porfiry Rostnikov #13), Stuart M. Kaminsky. New York: Mysterious Press, 2000. Chief Inspector Rostnikov and his team are charged with investigating three cases, a missing cosmonaut, a stolen film, and a brutal murder in a Paranormal Research Institute, only the first of the murders in the course of the story. Review

Less of More, Chris Nye. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2019. Proposes that the American dream is making us miserable and that the vision of the kingdom turns the American dream upside down, leading us to a truly rich life. Review

Righteous by Promise (New Studies in Biblical Theology), Karl Deenick. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018. A biblical theology of circumcision, beginning with Abraham’s being reckoned righteous on the basis of faith in God’s promised seed, who would bless the nations, through its significance in the law of Moses, and fulfillment in the work of Christ. Review

The Poppy War, R. F. Kuang. New York: Harper Collins, 2018. First of a fantasy trilogy, focuses on an orphan woman, Rin, who escapes from her village by testing into a military academy, overcomes prejudice, only to discover disturbing powers that reveal her true identity, thrusting her into life-changing choices as war breaks out between Nikan and the Federation. Review

Stones and Stories, Judith E. Anderson. Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 2019. A guide for understanding and writing with clarity, whether about literature or in any of four forms of discourse. Review

Write Better, Andrew T. LePeau. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, Forthcoming October 8, 2019. An experienced writer and editor describes the craft, art, and spirituality of writing well, or at least better. Review

The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, David Brooks. New York: Random House, 2019. A book on our life journey, from the first mountain of individual achievement and success to the second mountain of rooted commitment to relationships and service. Review

Pursuing an Earthy Spirituality, Gary S. Selby. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019. A survey of the works of C.S. Lewis through the lens of their incarnational spirituality, discussing how Lewis brings together spiritual formation and the embodied life. Review

Best of the Month: I thought that Andrew T. LePeau’s Write Better does what it says. LePeau writes with wit, practicality, and a great deal of encouragement to those who have given themselves to the hard work of writing. I wrote, “LePeau’s advice . . . is characterized by the unpretentious common sense that calms fears, and offers the coaching that helps the writer lean into the hard work that turns ideas into books.” If you regularly write in any form, get this book when it comes out in October!

Best Quote of the Month: I was moved by David Brooks account in The Second Mountain of how Anne (then his research assistant) walked with him on his spiritual journey:

“Anne answered each question as best she could. She never led me. She never intervened or tried to direct the process. She hung back. If I asked her a question, she would answer it, but she would never get out in front of me. She demonstrated faith by letting God be in charge. And this is a crucial lesson for anybody in the middle of any sort of intellectual or spiritual journey. Don’t try to lead or influence. Let them be led by that which is summoning them” (p. 239).

In a wonderful turn of events Anne and David later married, a story he also tells.

Current Reads and Upcoming Reviews: I’m just finishing up The Church of Us vs. Them by David Fitch, exploring how churches can turn others into enemies and how to move beyond us versus them. I’m also coming to the close of Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. His account of boating down the Glen Canyon, before a dam turned the area into a lake, is worth the price of admission. Brenda Wineapple’s The Impeachers helps me understand how Andrew Johnson barely survived an impeachment vote. Dan Hawk’s The Violence of the Biblical God takes a different approach from most books I’ve read on the subject. He doesn’t try to explain away or gloss over instances of violence in which God is involved or rationalize these but rather proposes that this was the cost of being a God who did not remain aloof from a fallen creation but committed himself to work through his covenant people to accomplish his redemptive purposes. I also hope in the next month to read David McCullough’s new book The Pioneers, which explores the settlement of southeast Ohio around Marietta, a book on the faith of Dwight Eisenhower and a biography of the recently deceased Jean Vanier.

So, I hope you can make the most of the dog days of summer to enjoy a good book, sip a cool drink, and refresh both body and mind!

Nineteen reviews for free. That’s what you received in January if you’ve been following Bob on Books. And if not, they are all summed up here with links to the full reviews. They include three memoirs ranging from Tara Westover’s best-selling Educated to Sarah C. Williams exquisite and poignant Perfectly Human.  Part of my sabbatical reading (that’s how I read so many books!) included three books on coaching. In fiction, I reviewed a novel by Ann Patchett, and an old and re-published one by Upton Sinclair. One that kind of defied categories is Malcolm Guite’s Mariner, an exploration of both the life of Coleridge, and his most famous poem, which Guite says parallel each other. There is the usual mix of theology: art and theology, the theology of sexuality, and the application of intersectionality to theology, and a couple on science and faith, including my first guest review. I won’t go into all the others, but one other standout was a biography of Fred Rogers, who was the “good neighbor” in life as well as on screen.

Educated, Tara Westover. New York: Random House, 2018. A memoir a young women raised by survivalists in rural Idaho, physically abused by an older brother, self-taught until entering Brigham Young, beginning a journey taking her to Cambridge, Harvard, ultimately at the cost of severing family ties. Review

Evolving Certainties: Resolving Conflict at the Intersection of Faith and Science, Terry Defoe. Self-published, 2018. A well-written, comprehensive survey of virtually all of the current popular literature on the creation-evolution dialogue. Review

Leadership Coaching: Working with Leaders to Develop Elite Performance, Jonathan Passmore (ed.). London: Kogan Page, 2015 (second edition, review is of first edition). A compendium of articles by experts in the field of leadership coaching describing and assessing different models. Review

Jesus Revolution, Greg Laurie, Ellen Vaughn. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2018. An account of the Jesus Movement centered around Calvary Chapel and Chuck Smith, who mentored Greg Laurie into ministry, and how such a revival might come once more. Review

A Peculiar Orthodoxy, Jeremy S. Begbie. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018. A collection of essays exploring the intersection of theology and the arts. Review

Between Two Worlds (Lanny Budd #2), Upton Sinclair. New York: Open Road Media, 2016 (first published in 1941). Traces Lanny Budd’s life through two love affairs and his marriage to a rich heiress, during the 1920’s war weariness, good times, the rise of fascism, and the crash of the stock market. Review

Commonwealth, Ann Patchett. New York: HarperCollins, 2016. Traces the lives of six children and the parents from two families over five decades from the beginnings of an affair at a christening that broke up two marriages and threw the children together. Review

The Power of the 72, John Teter. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2017. A description of the theology and practice of equipping ordinary people to join in the mission of calling people to follow Jesus. Review

Co-Active Coaching, Henry Kimsey-House, Karen Kimsey-House, Philip Sandahl, and Laura Whitworth. Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2011 (3rd edition–link is to 4th edition published in 2018). A model of coaching in which coach and client actively collaborate to accomplish the clients needs, and the cornerstones, contexts, and core principles to realize those outcomes. Review

Mariner (Studies in Theology and the Arts), Malcolm Guite. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018. A biography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with an analysis showing how his most famous poem foretold and paralleled the course of his own life–a journey of fall, a need for grace, and redemption. Review

Perfectly Human, Sarah C. Williams. Walden, NY: Plough Publishing, 2018. A personal narrative of a couple facing a pre-natal diagnosis of fatal birth defects, their decision to carry their daughter to term, their process with family and friends, and the larger issues their own decision raised for them. Review

Is There Purpose in Biology?, Denis Alexander. Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2018. An exploration of the idea purpose in biology, the association of purposelessness with the randomness and chance of evolution and whether this is warranted, and how a Christian perspective may both be consistent with what may be observed, and how Christian theology may deal with questions of pain and suffering in evolutionary processes. Review

The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers, Maxwell King. New York: Abrams Press, 2018. The biography of this pioneer in children’s television, the good neighbor in life as well as on screen. Review

Religion and American Culture (3rd edition), George M. Marsden. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018. A survey of the interaction of religion and American civil culture from the nation’s beginnings up to 2016. Review

Mindful Silence, Phileena Heuertz (Foreword by Richard Rohr, OFM; afterword by Kirsten Powers). Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press/Formatio, 2018. Part narrative, part instruction, this work traces the author’s experience of “deconstruction” and how Christian contemplative practice enabled a deeper relationship with God and knowledge of herself. Review

How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster. New York: Harper Perennial, 2014. An introduction to the basics of understanding literature–symbols, themes, and contexts–that enrich our reading of literary fiction. Review

Beauty, Order, and Mystery, Gerald Hiestand & Todd Wilson, editors. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017. A collection of papers given at the 2016 Center for Pastor Theologians conference exploring various aspects and contemporary issues concerning human sexuality from the perspective of the church’s historic consensus. Review

Intersectional Theology: An Introductory Guide, Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Susan M. Shaw. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018. An introduction to the application of intersectional analysis to theology, understanding how identities and social locations within systems of power might both challenge and shape our theological understanding and praxis. Review

Business Coaching & Mentoring for Dummies, 2nd edition, Marie Taylor and Steve Crabb. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2017. A detailed overview of the nature of business coaching and mentoring offering resources for assessing potential client opportunities, working with mind-sets, vision and planning processes, and marketing oneself as a coach. Review

Best of the Month. I had a number of good books to choose from this month but the standout for me was Sarah C. Williams beautifully written Perfectly Human. her narrative of learning that she was carrying a child with serious birth defects, who at best would die shortly after birth. She narrates the decision to carry the child, how they coped as a family, and loved their daughter. Here is a taste:

“During the nine months I carried Cerian, [Welsh for “loved”] God had come close to me again unexpectedly, wild and beautiful, good and gracious. I touched his presence as I carried Cerian, and as a result I realized that underneath all my other longings lay an aching desire for God himself and for his love. Cerian shamed my strength and in her weakness she showed me a way of intimacy.”

Quote of the Month. I was tempted to make it the one above, but I also loved this one from The Good Neighbor, showing how it was not only children who loved Fred Rogers:

“One of Fred Rogers’s most loyal fans was Koko, a famously communicative gorilla who appeared on the Neighborhood in 1998. Since Koko had been a faithful viewer of Rogers’s program for years, Fred visited her at the Gorilla Foundation in Redwood City, California, in his sweater and sneakers. When she saw him, Koko immediately folded him in her long, black arms, as though he were a child, and took off his shoes. Then they conversed in American Sign Language, shared a hug, and took pictures of each other.”

Current Reads. I’m about 400 pages into Ron Chernow’s Washington. This is one of the books on my “Ten Books I Want to Read Before I Die” list (it will be the second I’ve read since I wrote the post). All I can say is it is just as good as Grant, which I read at this time last year. Tomorrow, I will be reviewing How our Neighborhoods Make Us Sick, exploring how you can have significant differences in life expectancy between two zip code areas in the same city. Michael Card’s Inexpressible is a rich extended meditation on the Hebrew word hesed in scripture, which he defines as “When the person from which I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything.” Kennedy Justice explores Robert F. Kennedy’s years as Attorney General–fighting political corruption, organized crime, and advocating for civil rights. Herman Bavinck’s Philosophy of Revelation is a new, annotated edition of his Stone Lectures from one hundred years ago, meaty material, and surprisingly relevant.